


before

by falsealarm



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsealarm/pseuds/falsealarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Delphine Cormier backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before

Having a librarian for a father means that Delphine is raised with books always at her fingertips. She reads everything she can get her hands on and even insists her mother teach her English so she can read more. She receives her very own set of encyclopedias when she is 10 years old and has read every volume by the time she is 11. Her first chemistry set is a present for her 12th Christmas and even though her first experiment has the apartment smelling like eggs for nearly a week, science has officially become what she loves most.

She is a teacher’s pet and she is mocked for it but her parents tell her that being sweet and being smart are nothing to be ashamed of and when she receives the only A in her math class, she believes them. Delphine is smarter than most of the kids in her class and when she wins her school’s science fair at age 13 her father starts calling her his tiny Einstein.

Delphine spends her teen years in libraries and small cafes, tutoring athletes in science and math. She stashes away their parents’ money for university, lets the boys repay her in cheap wine and cigarettes but bats away their wandering hands. There are other boys though, with bags full of chemistry notes and perpetually-messy hair, boys who read to her and buy her morning coffees but they are boys still and Delphine has no time for them.

She devotes her final year before university to writing essay upon essay and while the athletes get their sports scholarships Delphine gets a full ride to the university of her choice. Her undergraduate career is spotless. She joins clubs, aces her classes, tutors students in her own year, befriends TAs and professors. There are boys with thick-rimmed glasses and pencils behind their ears but Delphine’s classes are more important, she keeps her distance.

Graduate school is expensive but Delphine has saved her money well and she only has to take out a few loans to get her where she needs. It’s early in her second semester of grad school when she first hears of the DYAD Institute.

There are whispers from other graduate students, Delphine starts seeing flyers for meetings. She goes to one by herself and the science sounds impossible but wondrous and Delphine is drawn to it immediately. Aldous Leekie is larger than life and the DYAD Institute becomes everything Delphine didn’t know she had wanted.

She signs up for their newsletter, her mind is buzzing for days afterwards with ideas and theories, things she had never thought of before. But there is no newsletter and the flyers disappear as the school year ends. The DYAD Institute becomes a half-remembered dream.

Graduate school finishes and her parents are proud beyond measure when she announces she plans to get her doctorate. Her doctoral thesis is something her advisors have never seen before. She works tirelessly on her dissertation, long lab hours leave her back in stiches, her eyes pained but she’s always hungry for more.

There is an email a few weeks before her dissertation is due, the DYAD Institute’s silver logo gleams in the corner of her computer screen.

> We didn’t forget about you.
> 
> \- Aldous Leekie

  
It’s cryptic and it worries her but her heart swells just the same and her work ethic is renewed with fervor. When she’s finished with everything, when her fellowships become job offers and she’s got another degree on her wall Delphine gets a call.

There are meetings, interviews that are more about her than her work and before the summer is over Dr. Delphine Cormier is working at the DYAD Institute. The first few months are beautiful: she works day in and day out in a lab with equipment fresh off the assembly line and the science is like something from a dream.

She does not officially meet Aldous Leekie until she has been there for 4 months. He sidles up behind her in the lab, watches her work quietly for a few moments and when he speaks Delphine knows it’s him before she turns around.

There is flirtation. His brain is unlike any she has ever encountered and he talks to her with such imagination and hope that she welcomes his warm smiles, allows his deliberate touches. His dreams are her reality and there is something entrancing about the way he speaks that Delphine cannot ignore.

There is a first date. His larger than life persona does not slip, Delphine finds that reassuring, tries to convince herself that maybe the persona is true. He tells her about projects the Institute is working on, projects she has no access to but has heard whispers of and he makes her feel privileged, like she is the only person whom he can trust with his secrets.

There is sex. It is soft but it is hurried and Delphine doesn’t understand how it’s gotten this far so quickly but Aldous is reassuring. He tells her that her job is not in jeopardy, that there is no risk, only reward. The thought is comforting but there is a stale taste in Delphine’s mouth that she cannot get rid of.

She slips deeper into her work, hopes that taking it more seriously will make her stop feeling guilty about what she’s allowed to happen. She starts to spend longer hours in the lab, tries to keep herself busy so Leekie doesn’t bother her but he’s still there. He buys her clothing and takes her out for lavish dinners and she feels like he is trying to rescue her from a life she doesn’t need rescuing from.

But one night, Leekie proposes a new project.

He makes it sound like the most important thing she will ever be a part of without ever actually telling her what she’ll be working on. She’s won over by the persona again, says yes and even thanks him for the opportunity.

The next day there are fresh slides and reports waiting on her lab table.

The new samples are incredible. She dives head first into the project, marvels at everything she comes across. Where her old samples had been infected and half-dying, the new ones are thriving, aggressively pushing their way through illnesses and diseases as if they were nothing. There are no vaccines, no medicines, just the blood itself and Delphine devours the data as it comes to her, becomes enraptured by her mystery project.

The samples are human, for sure, but there is something more. Delphine is curious, has the DNA sequenced and finds her samples are all from the same person but there is a sequence she cannot identify, one that is different for each of them. She goes on a silent hunt for more information but she can find nothing that helps her.

Delphine starts to become wary of the project, of her restricted access, Leekie takes notice.

There is a dinner date and Delphine drinks too much. There is sex in a hotel room that dwarves Delphine’s whole apartment and when she wakes up the next day there are plane tickets on the bedside table and a note from Leekie that requests her presence in his office when she gets in.

He tells her she’s going to Minnesota. She’s been promoted to a field position.

He explains the project, full disclosure, and Delphine isn’t sure she’s heard him correctly. He hands her a file marked with a code she recognizes and when she opens it there are photos, school records, essays and research papers.

324B21 now has a name: Cosima Niehaus, Berkeley graduate, doctoral candidate, clone.


End file.
